Stonehenge hosts more than 800,000 visitors every year, as many as 2,000 per hour during the busiest periods, and I wouldn’t be surprised if every one of them had a different theory about why this stone circle was built. Whether it was originally intended to be a church, a calendar or a UFO landing site, Stonehenge is probably the most famous megalithic monument on Earth. You can definitely accommodate yourself at a London hotel, 90 miles from Stonehenge site if touring Southern England. Stonehenge is believed to be about 5,000 years old. The oldest known sketch, made in 1574, shows the stones looking only slightly newer than they do today.

In his book Stonehenge: The Secret of the Solstice, Dr. Terence Meaden says the earth embankment and various stone circles of Stonehenge were constructed for worship of the Great Goddess. Other nearby sacred sites, including Avebury and the West Kennet Long Barrow, which were built during the same era, all contain feminine symbols of creation, the spirit that would have been most important to a people who were changing from nomadic hunters into farmers. Meaden sees the same symbols in the phallic upright stones and vaginal doorways of Stonehenge.

Clare Prout, the coordinator of the London, England based organization Save Our Sacred Sites, wrote that most visitors “park their car, pay their entrance fee, walk under the tunnel to reach the field that Stonehenge stands in and walk about a bit, nonplussed. There doesn’t seem to be any meaning to the stones, they don’t say anything and you can’t touch them. So they take a photo to prove to themselves that they’ve been there and go back under the tunnel to the shop where they can buy Stonehenge earrings for 10 pounds sterling. The spiritually motivated visitor might, as I did, weep for the death of the temple because really, the place seems at best hibernating, at worst, dead.”

Prout went on to reveal how wrong she realized her first impressions were when she got the opportunity to participate in a pagan ritual at Stonehenge. When she gathered with a group of like-minded women and men, one morning before dawn, she discovered that Stonehenge is not dead at all, but “very, very aware.” During their worship, Prout said, “the stones seemed to welcome and accept us, allowing us to do what we needed in perfection.”

“I prepared myself for a zap of power from the Land,” she said. “What did happen was a subtle, slow process of feeling very good about myself and the group and the Land.”

On June 22, 1999, newspapers and television broadcasts showed the shameful behavior of a mob of hooligans who broke down the fence and jumped on top of stones, forcing the cancellation of a planned Summer Solstice worship by a peaceful group of Druids. We are living in a time of quickening energies, a period when the forces of darkness seem to be gathering strength. It is more important than ever for responsible, loving people to bring their positive energies to sacred places such as Stonehenge. Many tour organizers are now able to get special permission for their groups to enter Stonehenge during times when it is closed to tourists. I encourage you to attend one of these early-morning or late-evening sessions, when you and your group can merge and focus your collective energies to help heal and protect Stonehenge and other precious places of power.